


Of Salt and Sensation

by willowthorn



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowthorn/pseuds/willowthorn
Summary: The spaces and moments surrounding a failed mission from AuDy’s perspective.
Relationships: AuDy/Cassander Timaeus Berenice
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Of Salt and Sensation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harpydora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harpydora/gifts).



The Kingdom Come’s kitchen is old, unfriendly in elements as white fluorescent light blinks down on Cass’ shoulders. They’re cooking again, the silver of their knife slipping through the green flesh of a pepper, the insides exposed with just the slightest pop. They’re handy with these things, brown fingers nimble, blue webbing stretching as they move the peppers to the side, scooping them up into a white bowl. Tomatoes are next, lightly scored before being dumped into a frying pan. A pot boils, stiff sticks of pasta softening into salted water.

AuDy imagens senses. Acidic, bright tomatoes. The tart, sweet, dry taste of the wine Cass is letting stain their lips a rich ruddy purple so dark it was almost black. The feeling of muscles moving under their hand as they reach for a different knife. The smell of salt. The smell of their hair at the back of their neck, curling and just slightly sweaty from the long heat of the day. The soft of their fabric. 

AuDy tenses their hand further against the fabric of the couch, their sensors feeding them pressure but not texture. They know they are warm because they have been told so. They know the couch picks up on heat, and they can feel none of it. They look at their hands, watching the pressure of their fingers dimple the fabric of the couch. 

They hear the hiss and clatter of a knife, a curse forcing its way through Cass’ lips. They’re hunched in on themselves, hand clutched tight to their torso. They’ve grabbed a tea towel by the time AuDy has gotten to their side, blood slowly staining the pale fabric. There’s the barest fleck of blood on the knife they had been using. The cut is clean, and all Cass’ voice is sharp as they tell AuDy to get the roll of gauze and antiseptic from the medbay. 

They’re sitting when AuDy returns, the activity of the kitchen halted. AuDy sits with them, medical supplies cupped in their hands as Cass slowly removes pressure from their hand, pulling back damp cloth to reveal a hard line of red, the separation of their flesh from itself. Cass grumbles as they see it, the annoyance enough to reassure AuDy that this will be fine. 

“It looks worse than it is.” They say, noticing AuDy looking at them. 

They say it again two weeks later, blood sluggish as it pools below them, the bandage on their thumb small and rubbery as those strong fingers dig into the fabric of their leg, putting pressure on the burnt hole left by gunshot. There’s a note of annoyance, less like their usual grumbling and more like how they bit the inside of their cheek as they forced themselves to get cover, get AuDy, get out. Anger, at the mission going foul. Anger, at themselves. Adrenaline, forcing all those things to be secondary. The ashy tone of their skin tells AuDy the details, sends a strange note to their core. They have no time to rip the long skirt they had been wearing into shreds, to relieve their hands from duty. Their lipstick is smeared, sharp teeth catching. AuDy forces them to move, arm around their torso until there’s room enough to sweep them into their arms. 

Alarms blare behind them as they flee, scattered shots chasing them as Aria and Mako run the best interference they can. AuDy can see sweat on blue skin as Mako flies by, Aria’s heels a barely audible clatter on the fire escape. They can see the sequins of her skirt. She had looked nice, the job calling for no more than a simple five minute recording of an obviously coded conversation in a crowded restaurant. A simple in, a simple out. Of course they had to be caught. 

There will be blood on AuDy’s chassis, a dark smear that goes unnoticed for the next few hours.

They find an alley, cramped and stinking. Cass holds their leg stiff as they get lowered from AuDy’s arms, gun finding its way back into their hands. They are utterly silent as people pass, their breathing kept carefully in check. They can barely tell civilians from the people trailing them from this far in, trying to read the shadows on the wall in order to divine friend from foe.

They wait for five minutes. Then ten. Then they fall apart, a groan bitten back as they sink against damp brick, the adrenaline that had been propping them up exhausted. Their breathing catches in their throat, their gills flaring as if just breathing enough will dull the pain. 

AuDy wonders, for a moment, if the vocalization helps with the pain. If that was layered into the experience of it all as well. 

They’re by Cass’ side, a protective body between them and whatever still was waiting for them. They work quickly now, ripping away their skirt to reveal the blood leaking in a steady stream between Cass’s fingers. They pull silk tight around their leg, and Cass does not speak, does not correct their hands, does not do more than look over their shoulder with their hands wrapped tight around their gun.

AuDy can see the lines of Cass’ throat as they lean back, energy flagging the longer they wait for Mako and Aria to find them. They can see fatigue being struggled against, hands inconsistent in their pressure against Cass’ gun, against AuDy’s arm. 

They see human hands come to carry Cass away, Mako and Aria lifting them carefully into the back of their car. The ride back is quiet, tense. AuDy is careful to drive as smoothly as possible.

And then they are home.

And then Cass is in the med bay, their blood removed from AuDy’s torso.

And then AuDy is left in the cold white light of the kitchen, remembering the rhythmic sounds of Cass cooking and a speculation on salt. Mako and Aria sit together in the living room, waiting for AuDy to join them, mugs of warm, weak tea resting in their hands. AuDy does, eventually. Cass is resting in the med bay, stable. They’ll need food - iron rich, protein heavy - and water soon, but for now they had requested space, requested that Mako take the time to confirm with Orth, to upload what info they had managed to gather. But for now, they sit with the other two, because Aria needs to calm down, and Mako needs to talk. 

So they talk. They talk to Orth together, as a team. They talk through what they’ll make Cass to help speed their recovery. They talk through what they’ll make for themselves, their main cook out of commission. They talk about whether or not the crutches Mako had used when he had sprained his ankle would be tall enough for Cass to use as well. He insists they will be, despite the protests. If they need to order different ones, AuDy can just serve as a crutch in the meantime - they’re certainly strong enough, and Cass never complained with the same conviction as they would with the humans. 

Evening comes between the gurgling of Aria’s cooking and the hissing of a kettle. City lights swirl in slow patterns out the window, blinking reminders of life and movement beyond the quiet of the medical bay. Cass is still save for the steady rise and fall of their chest, low light making their scales shimmer. AuDy sits beside them, setting aside warm tea and hearty soup. 

Watching them is easy. The contours of their cheekbones and the straight line of their nose have long since been embedded in their memory. They listen to the rhythmic tides of breaths. They match them up with the pained, tight things from only a few hours past. They remember different patterns, different emotional cues. They want to say that they look peaceful, the lines that usually pinch their brow relaxed. 

They want to touch that empty space. They want to discover what it feels like, the pressure of emotions pulling muscle. They want to feel the absence of stress on Cassander’s form. 

They have to wake them anyway, they reason.

Their fingers whisper across Cass’ cheek, pushing back loose locks behind their ear. They watch as Cass twitches, rolling their head away from the disturbance. They watch as that line threatens to reappear before fading back, breathing evening back out. 

AuDy moves slowly then, careful in the pressure they apply as they sweep their fingers across Cass’ brow. There’s no grit clinging to their skin, just the slight difference in texture of their scales. They measure the distance between their brow and the tip of their nose with the tip of their fingers, something like laughter, something like curiosity bubbling up in their torso half unfamiliar as Cass groans, swatting at their hand. They don’t seem to be in pain, grabbing onto AuDy’s hand.

“What are you doing?” They blink blurry eyes at them, wearing a familiar squint that usually coincided with long nights and poorly timed naps.

“You needed to wake up.” They were measuring, testing, discovering. But Cass didn’t need to know that.

“You need to stop hanging out with Mako. That’s not how you wake anyone, let alone a trauma patient.” They groan as they push themselves up, AuDy adjusting their pillows without a word. 

“I brought you tea.” The ceramic’s warmth would linger on their fingertips as they passed it over, transferring that heat to Cass’ hands. They think about that for a moment. Would Cass feel the solid nature of it in the same way they did if that heat was removed? Did it matter?

AuDy quickly concludes that no, it does not matter, because Cass’ tired smile and muttered thanks is enough. And it doesn’t matter, because AuDy feels like teasing them when they burn their tongue anyway. 

It’s sometime around midnight, sitting in the pilot’s seat when they realize this is probably something like love. This focused curiosity, how their mind still had not strayed from the question of what Cass felt removed from a desire to feel that sensation themself. 

They dismiss the possibility almost immediately. It’s just empathy. It’s just curiosity. It’s just that strange thrill of discovery when Cass does something new or when, after months of seeing them day after day, they spot a freckle they hadn’t noticed before, or the shallow mark of an old scar.

But it is hard, in a way, to ignore that initial thought as Cass leans their weight fully against them the next day. They had demanded to be moved out of the med bay, claimed that the air in there made their gills itch if they weren’t actually doing anything. AuDy serves as a crutch while Mako searches the Kingdom Come high and low for where he could have stored the crutches - he had assumed, somehow, that Cass would be holed up in the med bay for a few days. Mako had also assumed, somehow, that this time would have let him make a methodical search for the missing things instead of running through the place like a small blue whirlwind. 

Cass doesn’t make AuDy sit with them. They simply sink down into the couch as carefully as they can, wincing as they try to move their leg so it can be at least somewhat elevated. AuDy decides that they will make it easy on them, sitting at the other end of the couch, pillows moved to cushion their lap as they guide Cass’ leg up, watching carefully to make sure the motion is as smooth as possible. 

The scales on their leg have bits of lint stuck to them where they peek out from under the edge of their pants. There is a bit of crud and what looks like a faded ketchup stain on the slippers they had been wearing now jumbled together on the floor. They are still pained and drained and tired, hair a frizzy mess pulled back in a loose bun. They fall asleep ten minutes into a horrible documentary, and AuDy runs a finger absently across the bones of their ankle as they snore. 

They think of warmth.


End file.
